8 responses to “There’s no drama without a Cinderella.”

I’m a big soccer fan, it’s basically all I follow besides cfb with regards to sports, and I can not overstate how awesome Sunday was for a season ender. It was amazing; one of the most thrilling viewing experiences of my sports viewing life (and my team doesn’t even start playing in the top division until next year, so I didn’t have a dog in the fight).

I am certainly not a playoff fanatic and hope we never go past 4 teams. That being said, the article was not exactly balanced. First, most European Leagues have 18 or so teams…at least that is what the Bundesliga is like. I am a retired Army Vet and was stationed in Germany for 6 tours and 21 years, so I am pretty familiar with that league. None of the sports leagues in North America have less than 30 teams. Every Bundesliga team plays each other home and home…nice and clean.

There are other major differences. Because the bottom two teams (in some cases three teams) are relegated to the 2d league, their is enormous interest even at the bottom of the table. Nothing like that exists in North America. There are also two other championships that these teams play for simultaneously…the individual nations Cup (FA Cup in England, deutsche Pokal in Germany etc). Teams from all levels (sort of like FCS) get to compete for that trophy as well and it is most certainly a playoff type format…like the NCAA tourney. And of course there is not only the Champions League playoff, but also the UEFA Cup for teams that were not quite to the top of their league standing. I would liken that to the best of the non-BCS bowls.

It would be hard to do a playoff in Europe since the best players also are on their individual national teams. Every 4 years you have World Cup and then in between those you have the Europe Cup. These guys are basically playing year round as is and it is hard to conceive how a playoff would even work.

I’ll echo Bob’s sentiment on this. The soccer world in Europe has plenty of “playoff” competitions.

To expand on this, though, keep in mind that an ending such as the one the Premier League had this year — with the league coming down to the final day for nearly everything — is a rare year. And, the way the games ended — with last minute drama — has not happened since 1989 with the Liverpool-Arsenal match.

I’m a fan of soccer too, so I’ll see wnc dawg at those socialist meetings…but only if those meetings are run by the Libertarian Utopian Society. 😉

Quote Of The Day

“Give them credit, but I think everybody can see that Georgia’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. I’m very proud of this team and this university, and we’re not going anywhere.’ — Kirby Smart, AJ-C, 1/9/18